Why Conspiracy Theories?

[Clinamenic]

It's to bring in wholesale Internet censorship, China-style

I do think that if these efforts of cracking down on algorithmic misconduct collide, in a certain way, with the progressive efforts of social policy, then we could have an uglier situation on our hands regarding free speech.

That said, I’m not expecting that to happen.

 

[luka]

This was also the most empathetic hearing I’ve watched so far.

this is the difference between Americans and us cos we watch someone putting on a weepy, fake emoting voice giving it
'i beleive in facebook, i beleive in us' and we go, lol, leave it out, but Stan actually starts crying and saying thats so beautiful

 

[luka]

Assuming the two aren't coordinating... Facebook was founded the day they shut down DARPA's LifeLog project,

LifeLog aimed to compile a massive electronic database of every activity and relationship a person engages in. This was to include credit card purchases, web sites visited, the content of telephone calls and e-mails sent and received, scans of faxes and postal mail sent and received, instant messages sent and received, books and magazines read, television and radio selections, physical location recorded via wearable GPS sensors, biomedical data captured through wearable sensors. The high level goal of this data logging was to identify "preferences, plans, goals, and other markers of intentionality".

DARPA LifeLog - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

this is what we keep saying about the impossibility of seperating private from state in america.

 

[Clinamenic]

Assuming the two aren't coordinating...

I’d be surprised if they aren’t, in some areas.

But if these algorithms can themselves be subject to whatever organs of democracy we have, and I am ultimately a believer in the US here, then that would be better than if they were operating at the discretion of private, multinational interests who may even lack or deny an understanding of their own impact.

 

[luka]

Stan should watch some old episodes of Bullseye to find out what people were like pre-social media, all shy and awkward and self-effacing

 

[version]

this is what we keep saying about the impossibility of seperating private from state in america.

Yeah, the state outsources the stuff it can't get away with as easily as the private sector.

 

[Clinamenic]

I believe that US intelligence operations necessarily cross the line in terms of ethics, and secrecy is retroactively justified by compounding the stakes, etc.

But to think that congressional oversight will have no impact is incorrect, in my opinion. I don’t think you were saying that, but that seems like a logical conclusion drawn from what you were saying.

 

[version]

the government... seem like the lesser evil compared to the likes of Facebook.

The thing is the likes of Facebook can't legally seize your assets or put you in prison or execute you.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah, the state outsources the stuff it can't get away with as easily as the private sector.

Totally, all the contractors operating in the limbo between private and public.

 

[Clinamenic]

The thing is the likes of Facebook can't seize your assets or put you in prison or execute you.

But they can subject you, if you’re young enough and your world formed recently enough, to whatever informational agenda they decide to, within the parameters afforded by their algorithms.

 

[Clinamenic]

Re: young enough

that is, when your whole social horizon is mediated by these platforms, these social media.

 

[Clinamenic]

That’s what I mean about the other shoe dropping. I do think early and sustained exposure to internet entails a sociological paradigm shift.

 

[version]

But they can subject you, if you’re young enough and your world formed recently enough, to whatever informational agenda they decide to, within the parameters afforded by their algorithms.

Yeah, but the state can do that too. Maybe not quite as efficiently as Facebook can atm, but they were there first.

 

[Clinamenic]

And one that is too radically unaccounted for and difficult to even find the words to describe, too novel. But this hearing seemed like all of the subcommittee members were hit with a brick, and that this is finally being recognized in a fuller breadth.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah, but the state can do that too. Maybe not quite as efficiently as Facebook can atm, but they were there first.

In my mind, an intelligence community that doesn’t influence and exert leverage across the board is one that suffers a competitive disadvantage.

And I do think that the statutes aren’t just ceremonial jargon. I think public servants, while better positioned to be bought by elite figures, are also constrained by their office and by bureaucracy, and I generally believe in the efficacy of these constraints, at least when compared to whatever alternatives I can imagine.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah, but the state can do that too. Maybe not quite as efficiently as Facebook can atm, but they were there first.

Another advantage that private sector actors like Facebook seem to boast over public sector actors, is the recruitment of intelligence youth who have better intuitions of the landscape and how it is changing.

Think about the intellectual activity that something like crypto attracts, or really anything that involves building systems that transcend nations and governments.

 

[version]

This is so on the nose,

 

[version]

Another advantage that private sector actors like Facebook seem to boast over public sector actors, is the recruitment of intelligence youth who have better intuitions of the landscape and how it is changing.

Think about the intellectual activity that something like crypto attracts, or really anything that involves building systems that transcend nations and governments.

There's more money to be made in the private sector too, and less scrutiny.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah that scrutiny and whatever transparency we can get is why I would prefer the major levers to be operated in the public sectors.

 

[luka]

total bollocks totally shamelessly made up, for whatever reason. reality is fake.